The magazine, which lost roughly $13 million last year, is expected to lose another $8 million or so in 2009.

Terms of the agreement covering marketing, subscriptions, ad sales and distribution, reportedly reached last week, were not available. But Playboy's cost would be based in part on ad sales, which AMI now will handle. Most of the 30 full-time Playboy employees working in areas AMI is taking over will be let go, although a few will offered positions with AMI, according to the Journal.

Playboy Enterprises is said to be entertaining offers for the company. Bloomberg last week reported the publisher was in preliminary sales discussions with Iconix Brand Group Inc., the London-based owner of the Candie’s and London Fog clothing brands.

Distribution Services, Inc., an AMI subsidiary, helps other publishers such as Hachette Filipacchi Media and Washington Post Co.'s Newsweek magazine get their titles to newsstands.

About this blog

This is an expansion of the Chicago Tribune column I have written since April 2005, and the columns I wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times and Los Angeles’ Daily News for two decades before that. It’s TV, radio, newspapers and whatever, both locally and nationally. Beyond sharing what crosses my desk—and my mind—this will be a venue for you to share your takes with me as well as with each other. About Phil Rosenthal